Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

rgprice wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 3:40 am
.. Acts does seem to record the use of the name of Jesus in magical incantations.

Acts 16:
18 She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.

Acts 19:
5 On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 6 When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.

Acts 19:
13 Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, “In the name of the Jesus whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.”

Compare:

“Sleeper, awake!
Rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”

Think about this. Saying the Lord's name was not allowed. So you couldn't say YAHWEH, but you could say Yehoshu'a, which means "YAHWEH is salvation."

Now, if you are trying to use a magical incantation and you want to call on the name of your God, but you are forbidden from using you God's name, then what is the next best thing? Granted, the incantation from Ephesians doesn't say Jesus, it just says Christ, but it nevertheless could represent a family of incantations that developed around the use of the name Yeshu'a because it was a permissible means of calling upon the name of God in a ritual in which the performer is calling upon YAHWEH for salvation. Not only that, but the Yeshu'a of the Jewish scriptures was certainly a man of immense magical power.

Just a thought...

And of course, as you're likely to be aware, but others might not be, Yehoshu'a/Yeshu'a transliterated to Ἰησοῦς / Iēsoús (Greek), as would have been predominant among early Christians, and -> Iēsūs (Latin) -> Jesus

Building on this old thread (The Strategy for Mythicists Going Forward), wonder about the designation of "Jesus Christ" as a name.

Yes, Huller points out that the name "Jesus" was a common name, unusual to be chosen for a deity, however, is not "Christ" a qualifier for this name? The individual being invoked wasn't "Jesus" it was "Jesus Christ". True, some later incantations only use the name Jesus, but that's likely after the Jesus of Christianity had been established.

Would not using the name "Lord Jesus" or "Jesus Christ" be a way of using the name of Yahweh, without saying Yahweh?

Does anyone know the difference between this book : https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Magician-R ... 157174715X

and this book: https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Magician-C ... 1569751552

Is the one just a republication of the older with a new forward by Ehrman?

Also, what's up with this? Earliest reference describes Christ as 'magician'

I don't believe this for a second, but I do find the idea amusing that Jesus was some ancient Houdini who pulled a resurrection magic trick. Again, not that I think that. :p

Edit: also this: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40753243

This is interesting because its in Aramaic.

I wonder if it could have been used as part of a baptismal liturgy

like more specifically an older liturgy that Paul adopted from his Jerusalem opponents, the same who could say "Jesus be damned", who believed in Christ but Jesus was just a man, anointed by God and channeler of the Christ spirit.

On a pure mythicist view, the Nassene Hymn talks about a pre-Christian Jesus who is not Christ (since the Naassenes hated YHWH and his Messiah).
Clearly the price to pay for a such mythicist view, is the view that Christianity was born as an anti-YHWH religion, Jesus being the name of a Palestinian deity enemy of YHWH, who was already euhemerized in past as the biblical hero Joshua to reduce him to a mere human servant of YHWH. Hence the need of euhemerizing him a second time (as Jesus of Nazaret) again and again to submit him to YHWH's supremacy.

Note that, according to this reconstruction, the OT story of Joshua crucifying 5 kings was a deliberate reversal of a previous mythical story having Jesus crucified by 5 (demonic) kings in the service of YHWH.

perseusomega9 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 8:24 am I wonder if it could have been used as part of a baptismal liturgy

That has been my best working theory thus far.

perseusomega9 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 8:27 am like more specifically an older liturgy that Paul adopted from his Jerusalem opponents, the same who could say "Jesus be damned", who believed in Christ but Jesus was just a man, anointed by God and channeler of the Christ spirit.

I like this. A lot.

perseusomega9 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 8:27 am like more specifically an older liturgy that Paul adopted from his Jerusalem opponents, the same who could say "Jesus be damned", who believed in Christ but Jesus was just a man, anointed by God and channeler of the Christ spirit.

I think what you are saying here is something like the sacrificial lamb who took on the curses of the community? Is this what you are saying?

rgprice wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 4:31 am

gryan wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 3:51 am ... Lots of techniques were developed to make writings appears to have been written earlier than they really were, and some of those are employed in Christian writings. I delve into this in my book.

I see an association between the use of performance magic to fool people in live performances and the use of literary magic. Both tools reinforced a belief in prophecy. Diviners using live performances and writers using literary tricks reinforced the perception that prophecy was real and actually worked.

I'm a fan of mentalist acts, Darin Brown's being one of the best. He tricks people into thinking something was written earlier than it actually was written, and the results are of course, impossibly unlikely.

On the other hand, art sometimes anticipates history in uncanny ways. There was a novel that had uncanny parallels with Smith's "discovery" of Secret Mark. A defender of Smith wrote:

"...if we were to take any event in modern history and tried to find a novel written before that event with a content that resembles it in various more specific details, what are the odds we could come up
with a parallel? To what extant does real life ever imitate art, and if it does, how closely?
In keeping with my promise to be brief, I will describe only five such events" (Allan J. Pantuck, MD, MS, FACS, Associate Professor of Urology).

He waged a pretty good defense. I'm a little dizzy after reading it. The usual order of cause and effect gets mixed up sometimes, as this essay shows:

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/wp- ... antuck.pdf

(On another of my personal notes. Around the time I read Robert M. Pirsig's novel Lila, I also saw an old movie with a series of uncanny parallels to the novel. I thought it must have inspired Pirsig. I wrote Pirsig and he wrote back to assure me that he had not seen the movie, and that there was no connection.)

rgprice wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 9:22 am

perseusomega9 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 8:27 am like more specifically an older liturgy that Paul adopted from his Jerusalem opponents, the same who could say "Jesus be damned", who believed in Christ but Jesus was just a man, anointed by God and channeler of the Christ spirit.

I think what you are saying here is something like the sacrificial lamb who took on the curses of the community? Is this what you are saying?

The jewish groups that didn't see Jesus and Christ joined into Jesus Christ.